1. Field of Art
The disclosure generally relates to the field of user interfaces, and more specifically, to a user interface that maintains visual continuity and consistency of transitions between views during navigation.
2. Description of the Related Art
On conventional computing devices a user interface consists of a series of independent display renditions. For example, when in a calendar application, to switch from one view, e.g., a month view, to a second view, e.g., a week view, the calendar application had to replace the month view from the screen with the week view, even if the two views had one or more visual elements in common.
In an attempt to maintain a semblance of continuity, some user interfaces frame a portion of the screen in order to keep context of subsequent views. The frames, however, are static and lose relevance as views are changed. This is often the problem with framed web pages. Moreover, the views that are changed within the frame are similar to conventional applications where one view is completely removed from the screen and the next view is redrawn on the screen.
Conventional user interfaces also are visually cumbersome. When transitioning between views within the interface a user loses visual continuity with respect to any activities that must be tracked from the first view to the second view. For example, the user interface typically removes the prior view and redraws the new view, which can leave the user disoriented due to the break in visual continuity. Even temporary disorientation by the user results in lost productivity and detachment from the interface interaction while the user reorients to the second view.
In an attempt to address the issue of continuity, some applications and their corresponding user interfaces have been redesigned using multimedia authoring software such as Adobe® Flash® or Macromedia® Director MX 2004®. However, the applications created with these tools are “hard coded” so that individual applications end up with their own unique look and feel and well as their own unique functional operation as seen by the user. Moreover, as view pages in the application change, the visual continuity is lost. Thus, there still is a lack of visual continuity among groups of application as well as a lack of visual consistency.
Hence, the current state of the art lacks a user interface and corresponding system and method for maintaining visual continuity and consistency between views when interacting with a user interface of one or more applications.